It was contract signing day again at Rio Tinto Alcan last Tuesday as the company announced who had secured the job of putting in the underground utility corridor.

Richard Blais, RTA’s director of construction and engineering, explained the corridor is a three kilometre long loop that will encircle the new smelter.

It will carry natural gas, industrial water and potable water pipes as well as high voltage and fibre-optic cables.

“It will be massive,” he added.

Noting the modernisation project (KMP) had committed to using as many local and regional contractors as possible, Blais said he was therefore pleased to announce this contract had gone to a northern BC company, IDL Projects of Prince George.

In response, IDL chief financial officer Todd Patterson said Alcan had been an “industrial icon” in BC and the North since the 1950s and therefore he and his partners were pleased to be a part of KMP.

While the corridor would be a challenging project, Patterson said they had assembled “a great team” to meet those challenges.

He said IDL was currently working with the building trades to maximize the number of Northern and local workers, including Haisla, working on the contract.

And they would be working with several local contractors including 101 Industries, Kentron, Ladner and RSK.

Given RTA’s emphasis on safety, Patterson pointed out that his company’s rolling 12 month incident rate for total reportable incidents was 0.63 and that it had a program which saw new and young workers mentored by experienced employees.

IDL also encouraged and rewarded reporting of near-miss incidents or unsafe acts and intervening when unsafe conditions were spotted.

And he closed with, “We look forward to starting digging by the end of the month.”

Although RTA stuck to its policy of not revealing the value of individual contracts, project director Michel Lamarre offered assurances this one was “substantial”.